Two long-time baseball fans (and players of a “certain” skill level) air their views on current baseball happenings and trends. With 2014 season now underway, we’re fully-armed with cogent comments on what’s happening in the major and minor leagues, observations on how the game’s past impacts its present and how what’s going on in the present might impact baseball’s future. Welcome!

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Your Chance to Win a Copy of King of the Hall of Flakes

Author W. G. (Will) Braund

Decide which of these crazy things Rube did was the nuttiest and you could win a copy of King of the Hall of Flakes. The tenth submission will be chosen. Pick from among the following things. Rubechewed live snakes on a vaudeville stagemissed a start because he was home playing with his new puppymarried a girl he'd met two days beforedid handsprings and cartwheels off the mound after striking out the sideblew up a stove when imprisoned by the National Guard (they let him go)wrestled alligatorsherded the runners around the bases like dogeys in a cattle drive when coaching firstate more than 100 oysters in a contestordered everyone (but the catcher) off the fieldsold wieners on a bun outside the crosstown stadiumoften caught fish where no one had for yearsknocked out several 'villains' in Stain of Guilt because he couldn't master the fake punchsoaked his arm in cold water BEFORE a game to take some of the speed out of his shootsintroduced himself to his all of his new teammates when he arrived in town - at 3 a.m.never had a bank accountthrew a slider, curve, screwball, and knuckleballplayed with a lion on stageran into the stands and dragged a notorious gambler onto the diamondpicked up (by himself) and carried a woodstove from a burning storejumped out a hotel windowActually he did a lot more crazy things. They're in the book.Send your choice to w.braund@sympatico.ca

Friday, January 16, 2015

Preview of KING of the HALL of FLAKES a baseball novel based on the extraordinary life and career of Rube Waddell.

Available in soft cover at Amazon.com, as a Nook Book via Barnes & Noble, and as a Kobo at chapters.indigo.ca. Soon to be available in both hard and soft cover.

You normally
pay 50 cents to see a big league ball game, though sometimes you decide to be
thrifty and pay two bits to sit on the bleacher benches. But today you splurge
and shell out a dollar to sit in a box seat. You know you’re in for a treat.
Rube Waddell, the most exciting twirler in baseball, will be in the pitcher’s
box.

It turns out you’ve
wasted your money. The phenom does not pitch. In fact, he’s not even in the
stadium. You later learn that he chose to play sandlot ball with some kids he
passed on his walk from the hotel to the ballpark.

You’re
delighted the next time you go to see him and Rube actually shows up, though a
bit late - he was playing miggles with kids under the grandstand. But in the
second inning, after breezily striking out the side in the first and then doing
handsprings off the mound, he suddenly and inexplicably drops the ball and his
glove and runs off the mound and straight out the centerfield exit. You have
neither seen nor heard anything that might explain such bizarre behavior. But
then, outside the stadium walls, you hear what he has heard – the clanging of
the bell of a fire wagon. Rube is off to save more lives.

You try one
more time and the twirler is late again. You ask the booster sitting beside you
what might be the holdup. He matter-of-factly tells you that Rube often soaks
his pitching arm in cold water.

“Before the game?” you ask.

“Ya, he says he
needs to take some of the speed out of it, otherwise his shoots’ll burn up the
catcher’s mitt.”

When the star takes the mound he is
virtually untouchable. When his fastball smacks into the catcher’s mitt the
sound echoes through the seats as if a gun’s been fired. His curveball seems to
break two feet and batters just watch helplessly as it drops over the plate.
Then he curves one just as sharply the opposite way! He blazes two more
incredibly fast pitches over the plate and the hitter barely gets his bat off
his shoulder. The next pitch seems to dance up to the plate and the crowd roars
in delight as the batter actually swings at it twice. Somehow, this lovable,
unsophisticated twirler has taught himself how to throw a knuckleball. “He
calls it a wobbler,” the booster next to you explains.

“Is there
anything he can’t do?” you ask the cranks around you.

A man with a
red handlebar moustache says, “Ya. Rube can’t throw at batters to keep them off
the plate like other twirlers do. He’s afraid of killing somebody. And he
refuses to throw spitters. Says it ain’t sanitary.”

Instead of
resting between innings the phenom coaches first base. He makes faces, does
spot-on impressions of the opposing pitcher and the umpire, and pretends to
drive the runners around the bases like dogies in a cattle drive. Then he goes
up and sits in the stands and shares a bag of peanuts with some of the rooters.
You’re close enough to see that he has clear blue eyes, a permanent grin, and huge
hands. He compliments a pretty girl on her bonnet and parasol before heading
back to work. She blushes.

The Tigers try
to distract him by holding up kittens. They know how much Rube loves animals.
He does his best to focus. Ty Cobb comes off the bench holding an adorable
little tabby.

“You like this
one, hayseed? Well I’m gonna drown the little fucker!”

You’ve heard
stories of Rube’s incredible strength and wonder if he’ll go after Cobb and
throw him over the fence.

In the ninth
inning Rube calls time and instructs the infielders and outfielders to sit on
the grass and he effortlessly fires nine straight strikes as the hitters stand
and stare. Then he does cartwheels all the way to the bench.

“No wonder the
stands are full on a Wednesday,” you say to yourself on your way out.

Will and Rick spent many years together in the softball minor leagues as members of the legendary Hogtown Bombers. Despite this, they’ve remained good friends who are avidly interested in all things baseball, from its history, to its impact on society and popular culture, to the current season. They’re also very opinionated.

Please settle in with a cold beer, a bag of freshly-roasted peanuts, maybe a hotdog, and join the between-pitches banter in our virtual ballpark.

Followers

Will Braund

Will was a consistent .300+ hitter while playing third base in a west Toronto men’s baseball league before joining Rick and John on the Hogtown Bombers.

In the early ’90s, he was hired by the Toronto Blue Jays to work at their Instructional Camp for Teenagers in the west end of Toronto.

Will received an Honours degree in history and taught middle school for twenty years before getting a Masters degree in Educational Administration and becoming a principal.

He recently retired, but has started a company called “Making Canadian History Fun” and now goes into schools to share fascinating anecdotes from history.

He also teaches the kids some inside baseball.

Will spends as much time reading about baseball as he does about history.

Will writes on Tuesdays.

Rick Blechta

Rick is a reformed Yankees fan who now follows the Toronto Blue Jays. With a large collection of books on baseball, he has a firm grounding in the history of the game, but his real interest is the current state of baseball and where it’s going.

He also has a career as a writer of crime fiction (thrillers to be exact) and has a new one coming out next fall — just as the baseball post season starts heating up. Read all about it at www.rickblechta.com. As well, he contributes weekly to a blog dedicated to crime writing: Type M for Murder. Lastly, he has created a blog dedicated to food and all things delicious: A Man for All Seasonings. Check them both out!